“It is easy to smile at people outside your own home. It is so easy to take care of the people that you don’t know well. It is difficult to be thoughtful and kind and to smile and be loving to your own in the house day after day, especially when we are tired and in a bad temper or bad mood. We all have these moments and that is the time that Christ comes to us in a distressing disguise.”
“It is one thing to say I am a sinner, but let someone else say that about me and then I feel it – I am up in arms. If I am falsely accused I may suffer, whereas if correction be founded on even a small reality – something in me having deserved it – then often it hurts more. We must be happy that our faults are known as they are.”
Both above from Mother Theresa
It is interesting to me because they are consistent with Krisnamurthi’s view on conflicts.
It is easy to smile at people you don’t know because you do not have an image of the person. To someone you know, you have already formed an image – and that you are expecting that image to be consistent. But the image is not the person. So inconsistency is almost guaranteed.
If I am falsely accused I may suffer – that is again due to the image. My image of myself is being challenged by someone else, who has a different image of me. I feel hurt because I sense that the image I have is not me, and that it is painful to change that image because it introduces uncertainty.
